?Consensus is the integration of the iPad can enhance a student?s academic experience and have a positive impact for faculty as well,? said Handy. ?We used the iPad in every aspect of our course. The most important consideration is the device must be truly integrated. Simply distributing the device without evaluation of how the course might be modified for its use limits the impact.?

It worked for both students and professors. The student aspect should be pretty obvious, but from a school’s perspective, prof’s could rely on a minimum platform and it made classroom prep easier since they only needed to make sure their slides worked on iPads and they could just say go get this or that app, and know it’ll work.

This is going to be another moat.

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I found myself a little confused at first, the article kept saying “college” which in the US is akin to university. That is, beyond compulsory education. But students who are in year nine are not going to a university just yet. Can you clarify what that means?

In any case, I would have no problem with a university or a private school requiring specific tech tools because the students are opting to go there. But at a public school, where it the families typically don’t get to choose where their kids go? I do have a problem with that.

As a bit of a disclaimer, I actually do tech support for a school district, focusing on two schools that have a 1:1 and 2:1 student-laptop ratio. However all of the equipment is provided by money that came from the school district or grants. Students and families do not pay for any of the equipment.

I found myself a little confused at first, the article kept saying “college” which in the US is akin to university. That is, beyond compulsory education. But students who are in year nine are not going to a university just yet. Can you clarify what that means?

In any case, I would have no problem with a university or a private school requiring specific tech tools because the students are opting to go there. But at a public school, where it the families typically don’t get to choose where their kids go? I do have a problem with that.

As a bit of a disclaimer, I actually do tech support for a school district, focusing on two schools that have a 1:1 and 2:1 student-laptop ratio. However all of the equipment is provided by money that came from the school district or grants. Students do not pay for any of the equipment.

Yes I’m not sure exactly how the US system works, but here in NZ College & High School are interchangeable names for the same thing - educating students from 12/13 years up to 18 years of age. School is compulsory until year 11 (about 16 years of age), but university entrance is not acheived unless year 13 is successfully completed.

The way I understand it is the New Zealand & Australian educational systems have 1 extra year of High School secondary education compared to the USA, but after that extra year students go directly on to university without attending the equivelent “college” intermediate step thet exists in the US.

In the US you do not have to go to college per se before going to university. In many way the two terms are interchangeable, but with some slight differences.

Often an institution that bills itself as a college will offer shorter programs such as two-year degrees, sometimes with more focus on getting you a job and fewer general requirements to take classes in other subject areas. Or sometimes people will start studying at a college because it’s cheaper or has more evening classes, but eventually transfer those credits to a university to complete their degree.

Universities, on the other hand, normally offer degrees that take about four years to earn, as well as higher ones such as doctorates that take an additional two of three years. Often a university in the US has departments that call themselves colleges (ie. people studying to be teachers might take many of their classes from the College of Education within that university.)

It worked for both students and professors. The student aspect should be pretty obvious, but from a school’s perspective, prof’s could rely on a minimum platform and it made classroom prep easier since they only needed to make sure their slides worked on iPads and they could just say go get this or that app, and know it’ll work.

This is going to be another moat.

I think I agree, but I’m not there yet. I’d like to hear you extrapolate on the part I highlighted, above. In what way will this be another moat?

It worked for both students and professors. The student aspect should be pretty obvious, but from a school’s perspective, prof’s could rely on a minimum platform and it made classroom prep easier since they only needed to make sure their slides worked on iPads and they could just say go get this or that app, and know it’ll work.

This is going to be another moat.

I think I agree, but I’m not there yet. I’d like to hear you extrapolate on the part I highlighted, above. In what way will this be another moat?

I would hesitate to call it a moat, but most large scale purchases go thru a pilot/test period followed by the follow up reporting and then purchase decisions. The only tablet which has been through the cycle is the iPad. I would assume that schools will also look at android tablets during the coming fall semester, but the only vendor which has a product ready for adoption this school year is Apple, and once a specific technology path is chosen, it becomes difficult for the incumbent to be unseated. This will be an important trend to follow. In the airline business we already see the iPad making headway at a few airlines, Since the pricing is the same for competing tablets, there is very little reason to pick another solution so IMO the battle has gone Apples way in health care and aviation, education may be the next vertical.

Just an aside, but I read the first 50 (of over 200) comments to the linked article. Really sad.

About 20 of the commentators were furious that you were required to use an iPad - which you aren’t. If these people are going to criticize educators, maybe they should learn to read first.

About 5 of the comments were from curmudgeons who opined that pen and paper were good enough for them and pen and paper were good enough for the kids today. Next they’ll be telling us that the kids should be learning Latin by rote because, you know, it’s good for them.

About 10 of the commentators were talking about how useless the iPad was and what a toy it was compared to something really useful like a ... netbook? They had clearly never even seen an iPad.

Almost all of the comments contained emotion laden logical fallacies. Perhaps 5 to 10 of the comments actually mentioned something germane to the topic.

I have to admit that when I read comment sections like these, I fear for mankind.

Just an aside, but I read the first 50 (of over 200) comments to the linked article. Really sad.

About 20 of the commentators were furious that you were required to use an iPad - which you aren’t. If these people are going to criticize educators, maybe they should learn to read first.

About 5 of the comments were from curmudgeons who opined that pen and paper were good enough for them and pen and paper were good enough for the kids today. Next they’ll be telling us that the kids should be learning Latin by rote because, you know, it’s good for them.

About 10 of the commentators were talking about how useless the iPad was and what a toy it was compared to something really useful like a ... netbook? They had clearly never even seen an iPad.

Almost all of the comments contained emotion laden logical fallacies. Perhaps 5 to 10 of the comments actually mentioned something germane to the topic.

I have to admit that when I read comment sections like these, I fear for mankind.

LOL - yes this is the website for most of the nations newspapers (owned by a large Australian media firm). the cross section of readership is rather indicative of society, part I think the way the article was written & headlined was likely to inspire this sort of negative comments. If the article instead focused on the benefits of using an iPad, and how much the students were improving in productivity , then the comments may have been different.

(Edit: In a strange move they actually closed comments on the story, haven’t seen that before!)

On a side note, it may help with parents attitudes if the NZ base price for the iPad came down from $799 NZD. Even once you include the local 15% sales tax, the ipad price is more than $100 USD over the equivalent price in the US.

On the plus side, the rapid decline of the USD vs the Kiwi/OZ currencies will at least improve the ipad/iphone ASP tommorrow ever so slightly.

I think I agree, but I’m not there yet. I’d like to hear you extrapolate on the part I highlighted, above. In what way will this be another moat?

I would hesitate to call it a moat, but most large scale purchases go thru a pilot/test period followed by the follow up reporting and then purchase decisions. The only tablet which has been through the cycle is the iPad. I would assume that schools will also look at android tablets during the coming fall semester, but the only vendor which has a product ready for adoption this school year is Apple, and once a specific technology path is chosen, it becomes difficult for the incumbent to be unseated. This will be an important trend to follow. In the airline business we already see the iPad making headway at a few airlines, Since the pricing is the same for competing tablets, there is very little reason to pick another solution so IMO the battle has gone Apples way in health care and aviation, education may be the next vertical.

Both.

1) when I say moat, think “network effect”. I agree Apple’s not there yet, but its close. None of the tablets this year are going to make a dent in iPad penetration. Next year could very easily be the last year that competitors have to make a dent in this cycle of tablet adoption, giving Apple several years of lock in, in the institutional space.

2) Sure there will be other tablets evaluated, but they have several strikes against them:

a) iPad is here now
b) every day people (students & prof’s) are getting more apps & iTunes media (i.e. planting deeper roots in the Apple ecosystem); and
c) soon iCloud service based apps too;

All of these are very “sticky”. If a school mandates or buys and distributes a different platform (Android, HP/Palm, or BlackBerry [OOPS]). They will have to explain a lot vs. picking Apple.

While Apple might suffer from the perception that they’re more expensive, I think that will not be true for the time being.

2) There is no doubt that the iPad is the leader right now. Frankly, even ignoring ecosystem advantages, purely at a hardware spec level, no other comparable tablets are meaningfully less expensive. Apple has done a fantastic job of not leaving room for other tablets to grow. So, the main reason to buy into a competing ecosystem is to by something that is “Not Apple”.

One of my poker buddies bought a Xoom. Knowing that I’m a big Apple fan, he thought it would bug me and throw me off my game (when in reality his normal bad jokes do a much better of that). I just felt sorry for him

3) Apps: sure people tout the number of apps, but I think that misses the point that the apps that people want are there. And, by contrast not necessarily on competing platforms.

PS: if anyone is interested in iPad’s in education, I strongly recommend you read Fraser’s blog @ http://speirs.org/ He’s an indie Mac developer and a tech manager at a school Scotland on the leading edge of iPad adoption over the pond (IMHO), and a great writer.

Just an aside, but I read the first 50 (of over 200) comments to the linked article. Really sad.

I have to admit that when I read comment sections like these, I fear for mankind.

LOL - yes this is the website for most of the nations newspapers (owned by a large Australian media firm). the cross section of readership is rather indicative of society, part I think the way the article was written & headlined was likely to inspire this sort of negative comments.

I hope you know that my criticism was not directed towards New Zealanders or the paper or the school district or your country. My criticism was directed towards human nature. Instead of using facts and logic to inform our decisions (and I most certainly include myself in this) we make our decision first and then come up with some of the most bizarre rationalizations possible.

Just to take the discussion far away from the issue at hand, I remember the day the original iPad came out. The New York Times ran an article on the long lines. I think the comments grew to over 500 in only a few hours. Just as one example, some lady kept insisting that nobody should be wasting their money on an iPad while there were starving people in the world.